University seeks reputation improvement through enrollment

“We won’t be the safety school. We will be the first choice school,” said Edinboro University’s Vice President for Enrollment Management Dr. William Edmonds regarding the recent change in admission standards at Edinboro.

Starting next fall, Edinboro University’s admission standards will utilize a new equation that takes both high school grade point average (GPA) and standardized test scores into account, with more weight placed on a prospective student’s GPA, rather than on their standardized test scores.

“A lot of students are using Edinboro University as a safety school; they’re not using Edinboro as a primary choice. In making this change, by not admitting just every student that applies to the university, we are going to look at the students who have the propensity of being successful,” said Edmonds.

He continued: “When you’re accepting 99 percent of the students, you have wide range of student preparedness, from very to maybe not as prepared.”

Edinboro’s new enrollment requirement will place 80 percent weight on high school GPA and 20 percent on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or the American College Testing (ACT), while also taking into consideration coursework completed throughout high school, and class rank. “One of the biggest predictors of student success is highschool performance [and] high school GPA. So as we looked at that, [and] trying to be fair with our admissions policy and criteria, we determined [to] put more weight on the high school GPA and the courses students are taking in high school,” said Edmonds.